It looks like more and more true SIP clients for Blackberry are in development these days. This is great news, as many previous so called VOIP applications for Blackberry were mere dialers. This one comes from Black Communications, you can download the demo/beta version here.
The beta version has two limitations:
1. DTMF passthrough is disabled.
2. It expires on September 15, 2010.
I grabbed the software via OTA download from their site. Even though the site says it is 0.51, it is actually 0.52. The author frequently tweaks the application, as more people try and report issues. One of the modules sounded like a network capture software, but it didn’t seem to have any malicious effects:
I have to congratulate the author, as he only requires Recording permissions. Lately I have seen so many apps that require all the permissions or they refuse to work. It is crazy.
One suggestion to the author, the application comes with some settings, which causes network fail errors.It would be better, if the settings came empty and the application had an option to start registering to the SIP server on request, instead of automatically starting connection and all.
The settings are pretty straightforward. At the minimum, enter your Display Name, User Name, Password, Domain. Check Register with Domain, if you want to receive calls. Depending on your provider (both for Blackberry and SIP Service), you may need to enter Outbound Proxy and STUN Server. I left APN empty and it used my device’s settings to connect. You can also use Wifi, if your device supports it.
The app currently supports only GSM phones and uLaw G711 audio codec. According to the author, it is impossible to make it work with CDMA phones. The minimum required OS version is 4.6. The author promises dial from addressbook feature in the full release.
I wasn’t able to receive incoming calls, but this could be related to my setup. I made several outgoing calls via both EDGE and WiFi. Both had good sound quality. The major issue is the sound is coming from the speakerphone, which causes echo problems. I hope the author will fix this soon.
Also if you are using your own SIP server, you may see entries like this in your logs:
Registration from ‘”12345″<sip:[email protected]>’ failed for ‘xx.xx.xx.xx – No matching peer found
Whenever you save your settings, the application sends an invalid request to your server to gather some info. So don’t panic. In my tests, the application worked fine sometimes. Many of times, it had issues, such as call failures, network errors, it even crashed my SIP server twice. All in all it is a great work in progress. I would recommend you to give it a shot.
Pros:
- Works with EDGE, 3G and WiFi
- Call quality is very good
- Supports STUN servers (can be crucial for many NAT configurations)
Cons:
- Sound comes from speakerphone
- Only G711 uLaw codec is supported, which uses a higher bandwidth compared to G729 and similar.
- Interface is very simplistic and there is no integration to Blackberry
Nikolaus Walch ( View Profile) - Posts: